I'm not angry - I'm just Flashpointed.

There’s something always very grounding about going to the cinema. When watching a film at home – the thankless urge to pull out your phone and check what’s going on in the world will inevitably result in missed moments and details and ultimately a les fulfilling experience. In the salle de cinema however, with no phone service and being explicitly told to turn it off, your attention belongs to the film and you gain a much richer enjoyment from it. The Flash is the first film during which I can remember pulling my phone out to check how much longer I would be stuck there watching.

Compare this with Across the spider verse, seen one week before, during the entirety of which my eyes were glued to the screen, wanting every scene to last forever and left spinning when the curtains drew. Given that the internet seems (gladly) full of similar praises, on the turn of a heel I instead feel motivated for the first time in two years to put fingers to keyboard on what seems to be (finally) the culmination of the saga of disappointment that Man of Steel began all those years ago. I will try and finish on a positive note.

One of the most chaotic film launches in memory – which resulted in one of the most bizarre media campaigns of all time hailing this as the best comic book movie ever created – all I can say is maybe a worst one will be made one day

For the good, a comic book movie should always elicit a smile, which admittedly the slow build-run-up into flash’s first time-travel, marty mc-thigh, and almost any scene with Michael Keaton managed to. As for the bad… let’s get nuts.

Arriving halfway through what could have convinced me the rumours were true, that the DC universe had found its flashpoint, the flash running up buildings and batman tailing thugs, Irons’ Alfred chuntering from the batcave (and probably a studio several thousand miles from the rest of the cast) I let myself be content with the way things were looking.

Tum infantes ceciderunt (Then the babies fell)

The mind strains to comprehend the disbelief that came from the remainder of the flash’s opening. The proof was out in the open that despite lingering in production chronobol since 2014, not a care had been taken to make this film look respectable. In a story based around timelines, you could place the Flash around 2002, holding claws with the scorpion king. The viewer is forced to sit through two barry allens face to face for the majority of the film, supposedly being expected to ignore the fact that one of them (and not always the same one, changing from shot to shot) resembles a playstation 1 character. Every opportunity that you may allow yourself to forgive and forget is thrown back at you as you watch wave after wave of the uncanny valley tear across the screen in what is an upsetting visual of The Flash’s production.

One saving grace of the amateurish look of the Flash is that it distracts you from the plot. As comic book movies descend further into multiverse-mania, with the stakes growing thinner on the ground with every release, until about 72 hours ago the world could have relied on a flashpoint to keep everything real. From the timeless 2011 story, a hero fast enough to rewrite everything and save everyone, made humble by the fact that some events are written in stone. How then, given such irrefutable source material, does the Flash stumble so hard? 10 years of build up since Superman defeats General Zod and saves the planet, we walk into cinemas to sit and watch the same recycled story, with just slightly less of everything. The clearest memory I have, shortly after leaving the theatre, is how easy it was to resonate with the visible exhaustion of Ben Affleck on screen. DC’s films are tired, have fatigued their fans, and need a reset (upsettingly, exactly what Flashpoint was written to do). Let’s see what James Gunn can do.

To try and finish on that positive note I mentioned, go and see Spider-verse, run away from the flash. The latter pales in comparison in every imaginable way, which excels just as much in its meticulously detailed visuals as it does in its hypnotizing sound design, enchanting characters and encapsulating world(s) building.